I'll Wait
by SkySmoke
Summary: A "continuation" of the scene in "Setup" between Castle and Beckett in the tent/room...thing? SPOILERS for episode 3 X 16, Setup. This story contains, word for word, part of a conversation from that episode. Just to let ya know.


I don't own Castle nor do I claim to have written the quotes I have used from the episode.

The scene left me both wanting to cry and/or throw something at my screen. Soooo...i wrote it out. ;) Here is my take on what could have happened had that scene been a little longer. Comments are welcome and enjoyed, flaming is not. Thank you 3 Just a one shot to get it off of my mind. It makes the waiting less intense.

Castle had just asked Beckett if her radiation detector had a scale. He jokingly used Chest X-ray to Chernobyl as a rating system without really knowing how right he was. She considered, briefly, telling him no. She decided against it. The truth, always the truth. She looked up and met his eyes so he would know exactly how serious she was.

"Maxed out"

His face fell and grew bleak.

"Oh"

He stood up from the bench and restlessly moved back to the entrance to the room. Beckett took a deep, shaky breath trying to stop the rest of her body from trembling. She knew exactly how much trouble they could be in.

"It's a bomb. There is a nuclear bomb in that locker." He muttered.

"Castle, we don't know that it's a bomb."

"Well we will, as soon as it goes off, in that nano second before we're vaporized."

Beckett curled in on herself. Her arms were crossed in front of her stomach and she grew silent. Castle realized that she was just as scared and nervous as he was, only she would never show it. He walked over to sit on the bench facing her.

"I'm sorry, its just the writer in me going to worse case scenario."

She sat up and looked at him, meeting his eyes as he sat down. She sighed sadly as she spoke.

"Can we just talk about something else?"

She took a shaky breath and tried to hold back tears. Castle said the first thing that came to mind.

"How's Josh?"

She pursed her lips and rolled her eyes.

"Fine." She answered shortly, looking away, then down at her hands. "He's…um…he's on his way to Haiti to do another doctors without borders mission." She looked back up at him.

"How long?" He asked, trying to keep any sort of emotion out of his voice.

"I don't know" Her whispered answer was so quiet he wasn't sure that he had heard her. He didn't respond and she was looking away from him, lost in her own thoughts. She smiled sadly and continued, "Its so funny Castle, you know…at first I loved that he was so busy, its just…" She paused to think. She looked so sad, Castle had to fight the urge to reach out and comfort her somehow. "It just gave me an opportunity to keep one foot out the door, just in case."

She had taken her gloves off and twisted them between her hands as she spoke.

"But with one foot out the door, its hard to know where you stand." He answered quietly.

"And even if I did, I mean…what does it mean? He's out there… he's saving people…how do you even compete with that?

"You can't…no…no one can."

"That's one of the things that attracted me to him the most…that passion…that drive. Why is it that the thing that attracts you to a person always ends up being that thing that just…drives you crazy?" She was looking at her hands again, and he smiled briefly. She continued again, softly. "I just wish that…I wish that I had someone who would be there for me and I could be there for him and we could just dive into it together…"

Her sentence trailed off into silence as she looked into the space past him for a second. His eyes searched her face, trying to tell what she was thinking. He knew he could be what she wanted if she would just open up and let him try. He reached across the space between them and put his hand over hers. The move brought her back from her thoughts and she smiled softly at him. He took a deep breath and decided to just go for it.

"I could be that for you Kate, if you would let me."

He used her first name so she understood how serious he was. They rarely called each other by their first names. She tilted her head slightly and looked at him. She was pretty sure she knew what she meant, but it was the last thing she had expected him to say.

"What?" She asked quietly.

"You want someone who will be there for you, and you can be there for him. There isn't anything I wouldn't do to be there for you…for anything. I don't know what else I can do to prove that to you. Shadowing you isn't about the books anymore. It hasn't been, for a long time. Its about you Kate. In a way, it always has been. We could be there for each other…dive into it together…you would just have to give it a chance."

Kate stared at him, opened mouthed. Her mind raced. She hadn't expected this, hell, she hadn't expected half of the things she said to come out of her mouth when she started talking. Emotions were running high and that had made her forget about the walls she so carefully kept up between her and Castle. Walls that were getting harder and harder to keep up the longer she was around him. She still wasn't sure if it was harder to keep them up because he was working his way past them, or because she was letting him in. She glanced down at his hand, still sitting over hers. She bit the inside corner of her bottom lip before she looked back up at him. His blue eyes were locked on hers.

"Castle…I don't know…" He watched her face, looking for signs that she was angry at him. He saw none so he decided to wait for her to figure out what she wanted to say. A few seconds later, she continued. "I don't know if I'm ready for this…" Her answer was hardly more than a whisper and she looked on the verge of tears. He smiled and leaned forward, softly kissing her forehead as a single tear ran down her cheek.

"That's okay. I'll wait," he whispered, "As long as you need."

The sound of the zippered door might as well have been a chainsaw in the silence as it zipped open. They both jerked their heads towards the man coming though the door.

"You're free to go."

"Uh…we are?" Castle stammered.

"What about the radiation?" Beckett asked, her voice quickly returning to normal.

"We found traces of Cobalt sixty in the storage unit, not enough to cause any health problems."

Beckett took a deep breath and beamed a smile at Castle as she stood up. She patted his knee and walked towards the door. He stared after her, opened mouthed then reluctantly got up to follow her, knowing full well that their conversation wouldn't change much. At least, not yet anyways. But he could wait. For her, he could wait.


End file.
